"I think he's a tit," was the five-word summation from Miriam Margolyes, the call-a-spade-a-spade actress whose response to the audience question was the shortest, but by far the most memorable, of those offered by the panel as host Tony Jones passed the matter around for consideration.

Prime ministerial colleague and supporter Josh Frydenberg, who wisely noted that "I'm in a minority here", waxed lyrical about his boss' decency and qualities as a father, husband and upstanding member of his local community.

This drew the retort from Mamamia editor-in-chief Jamila Rizvi that if this was all he had to offer, the PM should go back to his local electorate and hand over to someone a little more inspiring. Labor's Andrew Leigh passed up the chance to offer his one-word summation, losing the plot in a rambling, partisan reply that Jones was forced to curtail; Trisha Jha of the Centre for Independent Studies tag-teamed with Margolyes, declaring: "The tit is a lovely bird."

It was an earnest edition of the weekly debate program, with the one true moment of memorable television coming again from Margolyes in an answer to a question about anti-Semitism. Margolyes – Jewish herself, British-born but now an Australian citizen – clasped her hands and declared: "People don't like Jews. It's not comfortable to say that and it's not comfortable to hear it. But I believe it to be true.

"After the Holocaust it was not fashionable or possible to be anti-Semitic … but because of the actions of the state of Israel and the appalling treatment of the Israelis towards the Palestinians … anti-Semitism has again reared its horrific, ugly head and anti-Semitism is as unacceptable as anti-Muslim feeling."

As ever, Q&A swerved from such moments of great power to stretches of mundane political to-and-fro where the duelling representatives of the major political parties held forth on policy matters or debates of the day.

The controversy over the president of the Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs got a workout, as did the ever-changing status of the Medicare co-payment. Tony Jones captured that particular moment when Frydenberg noted that his Labor opponent Leigh had once been a supporter of such a policy. "So were you last week," noted the host.

Unsurprisingly, not much came of it – Frydenberg agreed with Jones that he couldn't add much until cabinet signed off on whatever the current policy might be. Jones: "You don't know because the cabinet hasn't told you." Frydenberg: "That's true."

In other words, as usual, wait and see. For Q&A viewers that means wait until next week – and perhaps the most exhilarating part of Monday night's program was the announcement of what lies in store. It's a Q&A first – an all-woman panel, including the host – with Jones surrendering his chair to Annabel Crabb and a panel including Germaine Greer and Julie Bishop. As Crabb noted on Twitter after the line-up was revealed: "Odds of that getting out of control? Unbackable I'd say. Come along."

It promises to be the program of the year.